New Report Shows Govt. Revenue Exceeded Expectations In June
The federal government ran a $27 billion surplus in June, and every penny of it came from tariffs, marking the first time this has happened in modern history and chalking up another victory for President Donald Trump’s economic policies.
According to new numbers released Friday by the Treasury Department, revenue for the month totaled $526 billion while spending came in at $499 billion. The $27 billion difference lines up exactly with what the government pulled in from tariffs alone, The Center Square reported.
Gas prices also hit a four-year low, and grocery costs stayed flat throughout June, easing fears that tariffs would drive prices up. Instead, the data is pointing in the opposite direction.
“The tariff panic and inflation fearmongering from Democrats and their friends in the media hasn’t held up,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on social media. “[I]mported goods prices are down this year, falling even faster than overall goods prices.”
So far this year, the government has taken in $108 billion from tariffs, and Bessent says that number could hit $300 billion by year’s end.
Trump recently slapped a 50 percent tariff on imports from Brazil and added tariffs of 25 percent to 40 percent on products from more than a dozen other nations, including U.S. allies.
Critics warn that the aggressive trade policy could strain international relationships. But fiscal conservatives and deficit hawks are praising the move, saying it’s a bold way to bring in revenue without raising taxes.
Republicans in Congress are hoping tariff revenue will help offset costs tied to Trump’s multitrillion-dollar “big, beautiful bill,” which locks in most of the 2017 tax cuts and adds new pro-growth measures.
A Napolitan News poll found that 61 percent of voters believe economic growth matters more than reducing government spending. Just 28 percent said the opposite.
Trump announced that starting this past Friday, his administration would begin imposing “reciprocal” tariffs on countries that have not reached a tentative trade agreement with the U.S., with some of the new tariffs reaching as high as “60 or 70%.”
“We’re going to start sending letters out to various countries starting [Friday]. We’ll probably have 10 or 12 go out,” the president told reporters after midnight as he returned from a speech at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, the New York Post reported.
“I think by the 9th [of July] they’ll be fully covered, and they will range in value from maybe 60 or 70% tariffs to 10 and 20% tariffs,” he added.
The higher rates suggest Trump may raise tariffs on certain countries beyond the levels outlined in his April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement, which set a new baseline tariff of 10%—about three times the previous rate—and imposed steep duties on nations with significant trade imbalances with the U.S.
The highest previously announced “reciprocal” tariffs—tied to each country’s trade deficit with the U.S.—were 49% for Cambodia, a major producer of clothing and footwear; 48% for neighboring Laos; and 47% for Madagascar, the world’s leading exporter of vanilla.
“We’ve done the final form, and it’s basically going to explain what the countries are going to be paying in tariffs,” Trump told reporters early in the day on Friday.
“It’s a lot of money for the country, but we’re giving them a bargain. … I don’t want to stretch it too much, we want to keep it pretty reasonable,” he said, per The Post.
Trump stated that he expected to send up to a dozen letters to countries each day until the Wednesday deadline he set for negotiations.
“As we get to the smaller countries, we’re pretty much going to keep the tariffs the same,” he said. “They’ll start to pay on Aug. 1. The money will start to come into the United States on Aug. 1 in pretty much all cases.”
June job growth once again beat expectations, inflation held close to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target at 2.4% in May, and major stock market indices reached record highs this past week.
Top DHS Special Agent And His Wife Found Dead
A Department of Homeland Security special agent and his wife were found dead in their New Jersey home in what appears to be a murder-suicide, prosecutors said.
Police in Sayreville responded to the couple’s home on Glynn Court around 8 p.m. July 3 and found Kelly Latauro, 46, dead inside the residence, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Her husband, 52-year-old Christopher Latauro, was discovered dead in the backyard.
Both appear to have been shot.
Authorities said Christopher is believed to be the shooter and the case is being investigated as a murder-suicide.
Police told residents to keep away from Glynn Court, from Deerfield Road to Scarlet Drive, briefly because of police activity.
The area was reopened about 40 minutes later, but police remained on scene.
According to NJ101.5, citing DHS records from 2019 and 2020, Christopher was a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security.
Authorities have not said what may have sparked the violence.
Kelly’s sister-in-law Robyn Perlman-Spencer confirmed her death in a Facebook post on July 7, remembering her in a heartbreaking tribute.
“As many of you may now know, my beautiful sister in law Kelly Iatauro was senselessly and suddenly taken from us on Friday. Kelly was a bright light- kind, thoughtful, hysterical, inappropriate, and just one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. She left a lasting impression on anyone that was lucky enough to know her,” Robyn wrote in part.
Sayreville police confirmed officers responded to the Glynn Court residence on July 3 and found both people dead of gunshot wounds.
The incident is being treated as a murder-suicide, and Christopher is suspected to be the shooter, the spokesperson said.
The Department of Homeland Security and Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment on the case.
What began as a heavy police response to a deadly scene left two people dead and the quiet Middlesex County neighborhood stunned.
Investigators are still trying to piece together what happened inside the home leading up to the gunfire.
Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin made headlines last week with an election-related announcement.
Mullin on Friday said officials who don’t cooperate with the administration’s election security efforts may be slapped with fines — and potentially prison time.
“If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections — and they chose not to — then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time,” Mullin said during a press conference at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Mullin also promised DHS would work to “speed up our security enhancements” for states.
He vowed to hold up federal election security grants until state officials took steps the administration demanded, including running their voter registration lists through a system that checks for non-citizen voters on the rolls.
Mullin made his comments after President Donald Trump’s primetime address on election security Thursday night, when he repeated already known concerns about the security of voting systems, alleged Chinese efforts to get into voter rolls, and aired old gripes about the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
In his remarks on Friday, the DHS secretary focused on DHS’s work with states to secure election systems and scrub voter registration rolls for fraud and concerns about noncitizen voting.
The Justice Department also sent letters this month threatening prosecution to election officials across the country if they don’t remove noncitizens from their voter rolls.
On Friday, Mullin seemed to suggest that the agency was able to estimate the numbers using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and said 23 states are already working with DHS to analyze voter rolls.
And he criticized the legal challenges that are hindering the administration’s efforts: Last month, a judge blocked the Trump administration from creating a database of information about Americans, including Social Security numbers and citizenship status.
